Professor Wendel beschreibt den Inhalt seines englischsprachigen Vortrages wie folgt: „Many people argue that the real purpose of law school is not to teach students the law, rather the purpose of law school is to teach students how to ‘think like a lawyer.’ But what does it mean to ‘think like a lawyer’? Interestingly, most lawyers and law professors say it is impossible to articulate what it means. They say ‘thinking like a lawyer’ is an active process, like riding a bike, best learned by doing, through repetition, through trial and error. That explains why law students are asked to perform the same task on the first day of law school in America that they are asked to perform on the last day: read and analyze cases. The assumption is just as you learned how to ride a bike by riding the bide, you will learn how to read and analyze cases by reading and analyzing cases.

Most law students, however, will tell you the proper analogy is not that learning how to think like a lawyer is like learning how to ride a bike, but rather learning how to think like a lawyer is like learning how to swim. The problem is, from the students’ perspective, most law schools teach you how to think like a lawyer by throwing you in the deep end of the pool and saying ‘swim.’ No real guidance is given as to how to read and analyze cases, how to brief cases, how to outline, or how to write final exams. Law schools assume the smart students will figure it out, and the ones who do not, do not belong in law school. Darwin would have loved law school: survival of the fittest is alive and well at most law schools.

The presentation will offer an articulation of what it means to ‘think like a lawyer’ – that it means learning how to think on three planes simultaneously (the factual plane, the rule plane, and the public policy plane) and in both directions at the same time (forwards and backwards). What that means will be the focus of the presentation.“